As I gave Sweetpea, my little dog, her morning sniff walk, I passed the spot where the neighbor had placed their garbage for pickup yesterday. There on the ground was a package that had escaped the dumpster.
I know this is trivial, and I am chuckling as I write this but what I saw was a wrapper for a toenail clipper.
It was one of those packaging’s of hard plastic surrounded by a cardboard casing with the writing "Toe Nail Clippers" on it. Now that plastic, as you know, needs an industrial chain-saw to plow into it, and then it has a cardboard casing that could be recycled, but can't because it is attached to plastic. Thus, it gets thrown into the garbage. And, I've heard, so many people injure themselves getting into those wrappers that the hospitals have a name for it. I looked it up—not that I don't have better things to do, but curious. Those heat-sealed plastic wrappers are called blister packs or clamshells.
According to a British study, over 60,000 people receive hospital treatment each year due to injuries from opening food packaging. It's called Wrap Rage or Package Rage.
I didn't intend to talk about packaging. Staring at the wrapper gave me a chuckle at how much people are alike with their physical bodies. We clip our toenails, and brush our teeth. We use soap and shampoo. However, while driving down the street, differences stand out in bold relief as people advertise their political bent diabolically opposed to another down the street. One house wants to make sure we know they are Christian.
We as people are funny with our similarities and dissimilarities. One might say that makes us unique or individuals, yet we beat each other over the head with our ideologies. Ideologies aka, belief systems.
I missed posting a blog yesterday. I don't think that is important, except that I committed to Tuesdays. Maybe I will uncommit myself.
But then, I have another commitment: completing my Real Estate Licensing studies. I thought I only had three tests left, but then I discovered that buried below those tests was another section. So, yesterday, instead of blogging, I was knee-deep in the Federal Reserve System, Real Estate Investment, Trusts, Purchase Money Mortgage, Land Sales, Secondary Market—yes, more than you wanted to know. Me too. I don't know if I can pass my State Licensing exam because I began this study months ago, and I've forgotten what I read.
It'll come back to me. I need to be positive.
So, after breakfast and a walk, here I am, sitting down at my computer. And in my email, I found this picture.
"Consciousness Streaming Over Water," by Grant Pecoff. I love it. The Source gave me a moment of calm. And it gave me the nudge that we (I) need to stop getting frustrated over things we can't control and control the stream of consciousness that we can.
Husband Dear, Daughter Dear, Baby Darling, and I discovered Grant Pecoff, the painter, as we wandered away from our favorite Pizza place in San Diego, Filippis Pizza Grotto on India Street. It's been there for years, and it smells the same it did 20 years ago, for as you walk past a counter, aged cheese and salami hanging overhead waft their scent on all that pass beneath. Oh yes, and salted fish, I can smell it today.
A sign on the street indicated a gallery upstairs, so we wandered into Grant Pecoff's Studio, covered with brightly colored paintings and skewed buildings and docks. I was fascinated, and Pecoff was so nice. I have followed him since but only get notices now and again as he travels the world to paint. (What a life, huh? He paints, and his wife Layne writes.) That day I sat on his couch and read Layne Pecoff's book, Live Your Dream, (for young and old alike 0-5) to Baby Darling, then bought it.
Oh, if you are interested, Consciousness Streaming Over Water sells for $10,000.
(Books are cheaper than paintings.)